Robert Zimmer

Robert Jeffrey Zimmer was an American mathematician and academic administrator, born in 1947, whose research in geometry centered on ergodic theory, Lie groups and differential geometry. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1968 and took his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1975 under George Mackey, then taught at the United States Naval Academy and the University of Chicago, and held posts at Berkeley. After serving as provost of Brown University he became the thirteenth president of the University of Chicago in 2006 and held the post until 2021. Zimmer conjecture on the rigidity of group actions is named for him.